The Law of Attraction?

As you may recall, the Law of Attraction is evil victim-blaming crap. But, like the heliocentric model of the universe, the people that came up with the idea weren’t actually evil. They just drew the wrong conclusion based on the evidence at hand.

What we actually “attract” in our lives is more of the same. And attract isn’t prcisely the right word. But whatever you’ve got in your life, well, you’re going to get more of that exact thing. That’s why rich people generally keep getting richer. That’s why if your current boyfriend is a jerk your next one will probably be a jerk, and that’s why unemployed people tend to stay unemployed.

The things we have in our life come from the circumstances we’re in and the actions we take. If you don’t change your circumstances or your actions, you’ll just keep getting more of what you have, whether it’s loneliness and ramen noodles or friends, family, and caviar.

Some circumstances can’t be changed. You can’t change your race or your gender* or how you grew up. But you can quit college, or start it. You can leave your job. You can change what you look like – gain weight, lose weight, remove or enlarge a tattoo, get plastic surgery or a curly perm or become a person who always wears hats. And your actions, of course, are something you can mostly change.

If you change something, then maybe you’ll get something new from the world. But if you don’t, you will get what you always have. Rich people believe in the law of attraction because they’re already rich, so they keep getting richer and they think they’re doing something clever to make it happen. Poor people can vision their desired outcome until the cows come home, but they’re not going to get anything new from the world unless they find a way to stop being poor or radically change their behavior in some way. (note: poverty severely limits your ability to change your behavior.)

The law of attraction is evil victim blaming crap, but this much is true: you get what you’ve got.

It’s Valentine’s Day. What else was I going to post? Questions to get you thinking about love: What does love feel like to you? Is it difficult to love someone? Is loving yourself a concept that makes sense to you? […]